Chapter
50

Though I had kept my departure from
Canada as secret as possible, it had been suspected by many; and Mr. Brassard,
unable to resist the desire that his people should give me the expression of
their kind feelings, had let the secret slip from his lips two days before I
left. I was not a little surprised a few hours before my taking leave of him,
to see his whole parish gathered at the door of his parsonage, to present me
the following address:.

To the Rev. Father Chiniquy.

Venerable Sir, It is only three years since we presented you with your portrait,
not only as an expression of our gratitude for your labours and success in the
cause of temperance in our midst, but also as a memorial, which would tell our
grandchildren the good you have done to our country. We were, then, far from
thinking that we were so near the day when we would have the sorrow to see you
separating yourself from us.

Your unforeseen exit from Canada fills us with a regret and sadness, which is
increased by the fear we have, that the reform you have started, and so gloriously
established everywhere, will suffer from your absence. May our merciful God
grant that your faithful co-labourers may continue it, and walk in your footsteps.

While we submit to the decrees of Providence, we promise that we will never
forget the great things you have done for the prosperity of our country. Your
likeness, which is in every Canadian family, will tell to the future generations
what Father Chiniquy has done for Canada.

We console ourselves by the assurance that, wherever you go, you will rise the
glorious banners of temperance among those of our countrymen who are scattered
in the land of exile. May these brethren put on your forehead the crown of immortality,
which you have so well deserved for your noble work in our midst.

Signed,
L. M. Brassard, Priest and Curate.

H. Hicks, Vicar, and 300 others.

I answered:

.Gentlemen, I thank you
for the honour you do me by your address. But allow me to tell you, that the
more I look upon the incalculable good resulting from the Temperance Reform
I have established, nearly from one end of Canada to the other, the more I would
deceive myself, were I to attribute to myself the whole merit of that blessed
work.

If our God has chosen me, His so feeble servant, as the instrument of His infinite
mercies towards our dear country, it is because He wanted us to understand that
He alone could make the marvelous change we see everywhere, and that we shall
give all the glory to Him.

It is more to the fervent prayers, and to the good examples of our venerable
bishops and curates, than to my feeble efforts, that we owe the triumph of temperance
in Canada; and it is my firm conviction that that holy cause will lose nothing
by my absence.

Our merciful God has called me to another field. I have heard His voice. Though
it is a great sacrifice for me to leave my own beloved country, I must go to
work in the midst of a new people, in the distant lands of Illinois.

From many parts of Europe and Canada multitudes are rushing towards the western
territories of the United States, to secure to their families the incalculable
treasures which the good providence of God has scattered over those broad prairies.

Those emigrants are in need of priests. They are like those little ones of whom
God speaks in His Word, who wanted bread and had nobody to give them any: "I
have heard their cries, I have seen their wants." And in spite of the great
sacrifice I am called upon to make, I must bless the Good Master who calls me
to work in that vineyard, planted by His own hands in those distant lands.

If anything can diminish the sadness of my feelings, when I bid adieu to my
countrymen, it is the assurance given me by the noble people of Longueuil, that
I have in Canada many friends whose fervent prayers will constantly ascend to
the throne of grace, to bring the benedictions of heaven upon me wherever I
go.

C. Chiniquy.

I arrived at Chicago on the 29th
of October, 1851, and spent six days with Bishop Vandeveld, in maturing the
plans of our Catholic colonization. He gave me the wisest advices, with the
most extensive powers which a bishop can give a priest, and urged me to begin
at once the work, by selecting the most suitable spot for such an important
and vast prospect. May heart was filled with uncontrollable emotions when the
hour came to leave my superior and go to the conquest of the magnificent State
of Illinois, for the benefit of my church. I fell at his knees to ask his benediction,
and requested him never to forget me in his prayers. He was not less affected
than I was, and pressing me to his bosom, bathed my face with his tears, and
blessed me.

It took me three days to cross the prairies from Chicago to Bourbonnais. Those
prairies were then a vast solitude, with almost impassable roads. At the invitation
of their priest, Mr. Courjeault, several people had come long distances to receive
and overwhelm me with the public expressions of their joy and respect.

After a few days of rest, in the midst of their interesting young colony, I
explained to Mr. Courjeault that, having been sent by the bishop to found a
settlement for Roman Catholic immigrants, on a sufficiently grand scale to rule
the government of Illinois, it was my duty to go further south, in order to
find the most suitable place for the first village I intended to raise. But
to my unspeakable regret, I saw that my proposition filled the heart of that
unfortunate priest with the most bitter feelings of jealousy and hatred. It
had been just the same thing with Rev. Lebel, at Chicago.

The very moment I told him the object of my coming to Illinois, I felt the same
spirit of jealousy had turned him into an implacable enemy. I had expected very
different things from these two priests, for whom I had entertained, till then,
most sincere sentiments of esteem. So long as they were under the impression
that I had left Canada to help them increase their small congregations, by including
the immigrants to settle among them, they loaded me, both in public and in private,
with marks of their esteem. But the moment they saw that I was going to found,
in the very heart of Illinois, settlements of such a large scale, they banded
together to paralyze and ruin my efforts. Had I suspected such opposition from
the very men on whose moral help I had relied for the success of my colonizing
schemes, I would have never left Canada, for Illinois. But it was now too late
to stop my onward march. Trusting in God alone for success, I felt that those
two men were to be put among those unforeseen obstacles which Heaven wanted
me to overcome, if I could not avoid them. I persuaded six of the most respectable
citizens of Bourbonnais to accompany me, in three wagons, in search of the best
site for the centre of my future colony. I had a compass, to guide me through
those vast prairies, which were spread before me like a boundless ocean. I wanted
to select the highest point in Illinois for my first town, in order to secure
the purest air and water for the new immigrants. I was fortunate enough, under
the guidance of God, to succeed better than I expected, for the government surveyors
have lately acknowledged that the village of St. Anne occupies the very highest
point of that splendid state. To my great surprise, ten days after I had selected
that spot, fifty families from Canada had planted their tents around mine, on
the beautiful site which forms today the town of St. Anne. We were at the end
of November, and though the weather was still mild, I felt I had not an hour
to lose in order to secure shelters for every one of those families, before
the cold winds and chilly rains of winter should spread sickness and death among
them. The greater part were illiterate and poor people, without any idea of
the dangers and incredible difficulties of establishing a new settlement, where
everything had to be created. There were, at first, only two small houses, one
25 by 30, and the other 16 by 20 feet, to lodge us. With the rest of my dear
immigrants, wrapped in buffalo robes, with my overcoat for my pillow, I slept
soundly, many nights on the bare floor, during the three months which it took
to get my first house erected.

Having taken the census of the people on the first of December, I found two
hundred souls, one hundred of whom were adults. I said to them: "There
are not three of you, if left alone, able to prepare a shelter for your families,
this winter; but if, forgetting yourselves, you work for each other, as true
friends and brethren, you will increase your strength tenfold, and in a few
weeks, there will be a sufficient number of small, but solid buildings, to protect
you against the storms and snow of the winter which is fast coming upon us.
Let us go to the forest together and cut the wood, today; and to-morrow we will
draw that timber to one of the lots you have selected, and you will see with
what marvelous speed the house will be raised, if your hands and hearts are
perfectly united to work for each other, under the eyes and for the love of
the merciful God who gives us this splendid country for our inheritance. But
before going to the forest, let us kneel down to ask our Heavenly Father to
bless the work of our hands, and grant us to be of one mind and one heart, and
to protect us against the too common accidents of those forest and building
works."

We all knelt on the grass, and, as much with our tears as with our lips, we
sent to the mercy seat a prayer, which was surely heard by the One who said
"Ask and it shall be given you" (Matt. vii. 7), and we started for
the forest.

The readers would scarcely believe me, were I to tell them with what marvelous
rapidity the first forty small, but neat houses were put up on our beautiful
prairies. Whilst the men were cutting timber, and raising one another's houses,
with a unity, a joy, a good-will and rapidity, which many times drew from me
tears of admiration, the women would prepare the common meals. We obtained our
flour and pork from Bourbonnais and Momence, at a very low price; and, as I
was a good shot, one or two friends and I used to kill, every day, enough prairie
chickens, quails, ducks, wild geese, brants and deer, to feed more people than
there were in our young colony.

Those delicious viands, which would have been welcomed on the table of the king,
and which would have satisfied the most fastidious gourmand, caused many of
my poor, dear immigrants to say: "Our daily and most common meals here
are more sumptuous and delicate than the richest ones in Canada, and they cost
almost nothing."

When I saw that a sufficient number of houses had been built to give shelter
to every one of the first immigrants, I called a meeting, and said:

"My dear friends, by the great mercy of God, and in almost a miraculous
way (thanks to the unity and charity which have bound you to each other till
now, as members of the same family) you are in your little, but happy homes,
and you have nothing to fear from the winds and snow of the winter. I think
that my duty now is to direct your attention to the necessity of building a
two-story house. The upper part will be used as the schoolhouse for your children
on week days, and for a chapel on Sundays, and the lower part will be my parsonage.
I will furnish the money for the flooring, shingles, and nails, and the windows,
and you will give your work gratis to cut and draw the timber and put it up.
I will also pay the architect, without asking a cent from you. It is quite time
to provide a school for your children; for in this country, as in any other
place, there is no possible prosperity or happiness for a people, if they neglect
the education of their children. Now, we are too numerous to continue having
our Sabbath worship in any private house, as we have done till now. What do
you think of this?"

They unanimously answered: "Yes! after you have worked so hard to give
a home to every one of us, it is just that we should help you to make one for
yourself. We are happy to hear that it is your intention to secure a good education
for our children. Let us begin the work at once." This was the 16th of
January, 1852. The sun was as warm as on a beautiful day of May in Canada. We
again fell upon our knees to implore the help of God, and sang a beautiful French
hymn.

The next day, we were seventy-two men in a neighbouring forest, felling the
great oaks; and on the 17th of April, only three months later, that fine two-story
building, nearly forty feet square, was blessed by Bishop Vandeveld. It was
surmounted by a nice steeple, thirty feet high, in which we had put a bell,
weighing 250 pounds, whose solemn sound was to tell our joys and sorrows over
the boundless prairies. On that day, instead of being only fifty families, as
at the last census, we numbered more than one hundred, among whom more than
five hundred persons were adults. The chapel which we thought at first would
be too large, was filled to its utmost capacity on the day of its consecration
to God.

Not a month later, we had to speak of making an addition of forty feet more,
which, when finished, six months later, was found to be still insufficient for
the accommodation of the constantly increasing flood of immigration, which came,
not only from Canada, but from Belgium and France. It soon became necessary
to make a new centre, and expand the limits of my first colony; which I did
by planting a cross at l'Erable, about fifteen miles south-west of St. Anne,
and another at a place we call St. Mary, twelve miles south-east, in the country
of Iroquois. These settlements were soon filled; for that very spring more than
one thousand new families came from Canada to join us.

No words can express the joy of my heart, when I saw with what rapidity my (then)
so dear Church of Rome was taking possession of those magnificent lands, and
how soon she would be unrivaled mistress, not only of the State of Illinois,
but of the whole valley of the Mississippi. But the ways of men are not the
ways of God. I had been called by the Bishops of Rome to Illinois, to extend
the power of that church. But my God had called me there, that I might give
to that church the most deadly blow she has ever received on this Continent.

My task is now to tell my readers, how the God of Truth, and Light, and Life,
broke, one after another, all the charmed bonds by which I was kept a slave
at the feet of the Pope; and how He opened my eyes, and those of my people,
to the unsuspected and untold abominations of Romanism.